5.8ghz Band

Hey,

With the changes to the laws/GURL, does this now mean we can use 200 watts in the 5.8ghz band? (802.11a uses 5.8ghz band)

http://www.med.govt.nz/rsm/licensing/wlan.html

From what i can see it does, but you have to be using aproved hardware and have your setup tested.

Just wondering as i am concidering the use of 802.11a gear as a backhaul, because this band provides more non-overlapping channels, more bandwidth and is less crowded, so it might be worth the bit extra cash to use.

Does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,
Lance.

From reading that page, it sounds like the *supplier* must be the one that provides compliance information, not the end user.

You have to send them a notice where it is, and that it complies with the relevent radiation exposure guidelines. Without reading those I dont know what tests may be involved, but it may just be simple maths.

THere is a condition prohibiting point to multipoint, and multiple point to point installations that may make it impractical to use as a backhaul due to needing multiple links in and out. But who knows what there interpritation of it is really, would have to get some clarification. Its interesing how on the page they promote the idea of a community group to activly sort out freq allocations.

What this means is, talking from experience as I work for a vendor/supplier, that even though the frequency band in NZ is "Free", any equipment that uses it must have a "Declaration of Comformity" before it can be "used"in NZ. Note "used" not sold!

It is the responsibility of who ever brings it into the country to obtain this. So generally if a Vendor has a direct presence in the country ie Nortel, Netgear, Cisco, Dlink etc they will submit the gear to the Ministry of Commerce for approval. Then all gear imported by their distributors will have a label on it identify it as approved. Hence you find that there is a ANZ version using ETSI standards of each product. The US versions use FCC standards and are not compliant. Euorpe is close to ANZ, Japan uses less channels etc etc.

If there is only an importer, it is their responsability to obtain a Declaration of Conformity.


So what does this all mean.
The products from major vendors when brought from their reconginsed resellers in NZ will probally be ok.

Grey marketed product brought in from off shore, ie a Joejoes AP brought on Ebay from the US. Probally no compliance. If the model is also sold in NZ, and has NZ conformance the US model is probally US FCC. The declaration of confirmance only applies to the specific NZ model.

Guys who bring in container loads of what evers cheapast from Asia, Probally no compliance.

So you say why worry, will if no one complains, it'll "probally" not be noticed. How ever espically in the 5.7G band where Fixed point Wireless exists, I'd say go careful. This is a band where you are going to see more commercial use of this frequncy, and any commercial minded operator will not want un-certified gear in the band and want as much for themselves as possible, so an easy target is close down APs using non compilant gear.



Now from what I know the Fixed point wireless referred to in the earlier posts is different gear from 802.11a.

Confused, yeah I am.
Guy

:roll: